Comments (48)

I think you will see a lot of folks looking to cast a real protest vote in this race. Finally, a candidate emerges! The establishment will rally around TC, but the Delaware Way has a crack in it now ….Will be interesting to see if she can build a true grass roots army in this contest.

RE Vanella—There is still time for you to file too. Take the weekend to think it over. I think you would be a good candidate. Lots of talking, fist pounding, walking around building a base of supporters, and trying to solve real life problems.

Maybe Alby would be your campaign manager. Alby has all the answers and knows what it takes to take back the Democratic Party and appeal to a broad group of people with uplifting inspiring ideas and would be my go to on how to craft a unifying message for a state wide race.

REV: it’s kind of important because I’d like my politicians to know things like how to use language, which is to some extent a reflection of their thinking process. There are already enough with this problem on the other side.

Sorry, not the least interested in “taking back” the Democratic Party from anything. I’m a Democrat of convenience. As soon as the Republicans have better primaries than Democrats, I’ll be a Republican again, seeing as there are no anarcho-syndicalists on the ballot. Not the least bit interested in playing a rigged game for the amusement of the masses. Not interested in falling for the bullshit you swallow and regurgitate so well.

Still laughing at a guy quoting Teddy R anonymously. Talk about missing the message…

You’re a coward, my friend. It takes a true coward to criticize people who don’t endorse your status quo as the best of possible worlds, while doing it anonymously. At least we use our names and criticize power. You punch down anonymously.

Enjoy your groveling life….or do you not even realize you’re a groveler? Most likely not.

It’s a long shot, but Ms. Harris does have a shot, and it helps if she’s regarded as token resistance. It certainly helped Christine O’Donnell. What also helped her was a grass-roots network she had built up by speaking at anti-abortion church meetings. She was not taken seriously by Castle’s people, who a week before the primary were yucking it up about what a joke she was. They weren’t wrong, but they were wrong enough.

I don’t know how far Ms. Harris’ ties to community groups extend, but if they’re wide enough she can do this. All she needs is 30,000 committed voters. Here’s how I figure that:

This is a midterm election, so Democratic primary turnout should be way down — it’s usually within a few points of 10% in non-mayoral/county exec years. That would mean a little more than 30,000 votes. Under normal circumstances most of those votes go to Carper, as they did in 2012 when he got 88% against Keith Spanarelli. He got 44,000 votes in that election, but that was in a presidential year.

So assume Carper gets 90% of the 31,000 expected votes, leaving him at 28,000. If Harris can convince 30,000 people who wouldn’t normally vote in an off-year primary to show up for her, hey presto! The votes are out there; more than 70,000 people turned out for the Markell-Carney showdown in ’08. The key is reaching them.

I think once people know Kerri and what she’s about she will gain steam fast. She is so genuine and her concern for people is obvious. I personally can’t wait to send someone to DC who cares about regular delawareans and not just the rich folk.

@scuttlebutt: This isn’t impossible. Delaware is a small enough place that your volunteers can contact the necessary number of people in person, and follow them through to election day so they actually go vote. Or did you think Christine O’Donnell did it with incantations and magic beans?

She’s got a better chance against a clueless old fart like Carper than she would against any of his younger would-be successors.

@REV – Before I find out anything about her positions on issues, I find out she is a biracial lesbian who struggles to make ends meet and hasn’t graduated from college. And yes it is a criticism of the reporter.

I’ve been a Delaware Democrat my whole life and I think we Democrats gotta rally behind Carper because he will for sure hold this seat for Democrats. It’s too risky to make this an open seat with new candidates on both sides.

Congresswoman Blunt Rochester,
Yeah, it’s too risky to risk losing a mindless dinosaur.
Are you saying if Ms Harris wins the primary, you wont do everything in your power to help her win the election? What are you, a trumpist?
Are you the type of democrat who wants to sit back and have everything done for you by more sr members of your party?
Are you secretly a republican and that is why felt the need to claim lifelong Dem-itude then go on to support a politicians who is basically to the right of Mike Castle?

I doubt it’s really LBR, but let’s remember something that should be obvious: Demographics don’t guarantee politics. Her father was a grip-and-grin Democrat — showed up for the photos in nicely tailored suits (none of Charles Potter’s rust-orange numbers) but never, ever rocked the boat. That’s the kind of Delaware Democrat the folks who run the state allow to the top.

the question of the day for Carper’s office will be to ask if he will fully support and campaign for Ms Harris if she gets the nomination…. or if he will be a sore loser and allow the party of Trump to gain a senator in Delaware. phrase it like that.

@ Paul…. crack because now an opponent can point out Carper’s actual record in debates and during the campaign. He can’t run and hide from his votes and record now. Make him publicly justify his votes and positions if good opp research done on his contribution history and lousy votes … with no opponent, can’t do that….of course the News Urinal won’t cover much of this race and give her any ink, like they would have 10 or 20 years ago.

Were Ms Harris to show any possible polling interest or lack of respect to Carper or a lack of Fealty to the Democrats the News Journal would use all it’s investigative muscle to find allegations of her violently assaulting her Kindergarten Teacher, possible involvement in the opium trade, and an unpaid tax bill of $3,586,000. Any necessary retractions would be printed the following year.

People have a misconception about how reporters find dirt of that sort on candidates. They don’t go digging without a map. Opposition researchers tell them where to look.

Do you think reporters looked into Christine O’Donnell’s finances to determine that she was paying rent from campaign funds? Don’t be silly. Reporters (with a few exceptions so rare they don’t affect the generalization) don’t have the time or freedom to look into every nook and cranny of a person’s life, and news organizations don’t have the money to let them. As an editor, my most precious commodity was the time of my reporters, because it had to translate into column inches for my senior editors, and if it didn’t, I was the one taken to the shed (quite often, as it turned out).

Any candidate’s political opponents, OTOH, have not just the time but, if they’re incumbents, usually also have money to burn. When they turn up dirt, it’s passed to a reporter so that it looks like an independent discovery. In truth, as we all know, almost all revelations of this sort come not from the press, not even from the other political party, but from primary opponents.

So what Tom Carper is doing in digging up dirt on Ms. Harris is standard operating procedure. If his people turn up anything, it won’t have Carper’s fingerprints on it anymore once it sees print.

Given all that is going on with abuse and me too and a recent White House Aid being fired for giving his Ex wife a black eye, why is no one pressing Carper on him admittedly slapping his ex wife (who is unfortunately dead) a black eye? Is Biden, Coons, Rochester going to ask him to resign because of zero tolerance? Interesting that there is nothing in the News Journal but other national news outlets are at least asking this question.